bécasse

It would seem that HMRC have been taking a deliberate "laid-off" attitude to items coming from the EU to the UK (those mainland Europe layouts at Warley, for example) but you can expect EU countries to apply the rules strictly to the letter for layouts going the other way (hence the vast and well-publicised traffic jams at Dover where the French controls are - Dutch controls take place their side of the North Sea). Remember, too, that Customs' checks don't take place just at borders, I regularly see the Belgian Customs undertaking random checks on main roads (and not just on autoroutes, stopping any suspicious vehicle for examination - and any van with one of those "YUK" plates on the back is going to be considered suspect. The British voted to be treated differently - and they are!

The name "Gamma" hints that it might have been their third loco.

The most significant point about the light railway clauses in the 1868 ROR Act was that it permitted such railways, which had to have been lightly constructed, to be subject to a less rigorous BoT inspection than was habitual. There do seem to have been a considerable number and most weren't, with hindsight, very obvious, as an example the L&SWR's final initial approach to Bournemouth was one of them. It seems probable that any line completed within the next decade or so after 1868 on which a 25 mph speed limit was imposed was in fact inspected under the provisions of the light railway clauses of the Act. The 8 ton axle load limit is a slight red herring in that, while the railway had to be lightly constructed, there was no requirement that structures or permanent way should be incapable of carrying a greater axle load, which was probably not that onerous anyway at that period.

Locos got swapped around between the various "Stephens" light railways because the gentleman(?) concerned personally owned them and profitably rented them out to the railways he managed. Those railways where he specified the civil engineering requirement usually had under bridges which were of rather lighter construction than was required to keep costs adequately low, such bridges with their low permitted maximum axle weights being very useful to the hire fleet side of his personal business.

Wasn't maroon used as the "dark" colour in certain places at one time?

2-HAPs of both varieties were used on East and West Coastway services in the 1970s following on from the use of 2-BILs and 4-CORs. The Bulleid variety disappeared en mass with the timetable change of April 1976 (to become 2-SAPs in the CD suburban area) but the BR variety continued throughout the rest of the decade. I can't remember precisely when the 4-CAPs appeared (which of course were just 2x2-HAPs semi-permanently coupled) but Blood and Custard will have the dates. I would suggest that 4-VEPs and 4-CIGs were seen occasionally on Coastway services throughout the decade - and quite exceptionally 4-EPBs.

Bituminised paint was my assumption too, particularly as I suspect that the reason that GWR Loco Coal wagons were black (rather than the dark grey used on other wagons) was that bituminised paint was used on them, the GWR being known to have been significant users of it.

The "mortar" wash will affect the final colours of individual stones as well and you might find that you have to paint/repaint some of the individual stones after applying the mortar wash to get the overall effect that you want. Try to find some photos of stone walls in the actual geographical location where your layout is supposedly set, they vary quite considerably; Google Streetview can be a useful source if all else fails. I have attached three photos of a stone retaining wall in the immediate area where I live. The horizontal "banding" comes about because of the way that they are constructed with the workmen working from staging which is lifted each time a "band" is completed. Despite appearances these are actually drystone walls, the mortar only being added as a final pointing to keep moisture (and hence potential frost damage) out.

That was my understanding of BR practice too despite the fact that Hornby Dublo finished the inside of their (rather nice for the time) 16T mineral wagon in black. An understanding that was seemingly confirmed by the discovery of a colour photo which showed a "pale-pink" interior which is just how I would have expected a lightly rusted self-weathering steel to look. However, opening this month's Railway Bylines at page 137 I found a picture of a line of various steel mineral wagons stabled (doubtless for the summer when there was less demand for them) at Stoke Bruern station on the erstwhile SMJR in the early 1960s. A three-quarter view taken from the road bridge, it clearly shows parts of the interior of a number of wagons - and they all appear to be painted black or possibly dark grey, certainly a much darker colour than their exterior wagon grey finish and much darker than I would expect self-weathering steel to look. A number of them show marks left by their previous loads, and they would have been out empty in the rain for some time, so the dark colour is most unlikely to be the result of coal dust remaining from their previous duties. The source of the photo isn't acknowledged.

I have seen a reasonable effect of cream lettering created by judicious use of a yellow highlighter. I haven't done it myself, though, so I am unaware of what potential pitfalls it might involve, or how long lasting it might be

You already have convincing replies on the voltage drop (or, more realistically, effective lack of resistance drop) on your proposed circular layout, but it might be worth adding one final statistic. The resistance of 1,5mm2 copper wire is all of 11,5 ohms per kilometre.

The Southern utility vans were always U-vans (or sometimes "Cavells") to SR staff, no matter what fancy coding might be painted on them. Once pooling came with nationalisation the main difficulty was preventing other regions from poaching them. The principal reason for adding them to local trains, there were even examples specially fitted to work with pull&push stock, was pram traffic, particularly during the immediate post-war baby boom decade when few families possessed cars - electric units could usually cope with prams because most units had more than one brake van.

There is one other issue, if there are two signals on the same post (ie not bracketed) ahead of a facing point, the normal convention is that upper and lower relate to left and right in that order (and likewise if there are more than two routes/arms). You have them the other way round. Bracketing signal 2 to the left, even marginally, might be the obvious answer. Signals mounted one above another relating to different routes were once commonplace but started to become rarer during, say, the 1880s, at least for running roads.

I suspect that fixed stop semaphore signals had become part of the national S&T repertoire somewhen about then, albeit very rarely used, one was installed at Shanklin in 1967 as part of the IoW electrification scheme (although that scheme did use some rather odd signalling arrangements - the lack of distant signals being the most obvious). The Southern had certainly been installing fixed red c/l signals by the early 1960s - there were a pair at Folkestone Harbour - but at the same time was still using subsidiary yellows (with a partially masked lens), displayed alongside a red, to permit entry to non-passenger routes which were effectively permissive.

That photo is also useful in confirming that at least some of the maroon-painted MK2a FKs had black dark grey and not maroon ends.

I would have said that the norm was for both footplatemen to be upright, the fireman of near necessity, the driver because he got a better view of the road ahead (and, having once been a fireman, was used to habitually standing on a footplate). The seats would typically only be used when the train was at a stand and there were no immediate tasks to be done.

Shunt discs (dollies, dummies, w.h.y.) with yellow stripes were discs which could be passed in the on position if the relevant points were set appropriately - typically towards a head shunt - but could not be passed when "on" if the points were set towards a running road. They displayed a yellow light at night when "on". They were introduced by the LMSR, LNER and SR (but not by the GWR) in the very early 1930s. The WR started to do the same only in the early 1950s and then generally only for new works. Prior to their introduction the shunt discs concerned were red and the requirement to pass these when "on" was considered undesirable by the post-Great War committees charged with examining future British signalling requirements, that was why the change was made.

Name of photographer obviously withheld to avoid embarrassment. He (she?) clearly didn't realise that it was 2FS and not N, although the finescale pointwork should have given a vital clue.

There were a handful of examples of "repeater" shunt dollies around the railway network but they were very, very rare. There were far more places where no shunt dolly at all was provided for a shunt from a running line to a siding or another running line and the move was authorised by hand signals from the signalman. Shunt dollies were always provided at the exit from a siding to a running line unless that exit was controlled by an immediately adjacent ground frame (not signal box).

I had known the late Adrian Swain since c1970 (even before he started ABS Models) and he was always meticulous in his researches, so if said something in the instructions or incorporated something in the kit he would have had good reason for doing so. That doesn't always mean it was right, even the best sources can mislead, but it is a reasonable presumption that if something is incorporated in one of his kits it was also incorporated in at least some of the prototype vehicles that the constructed kit is intended to portray.

I am remained of a story that came out of the OURS many years ago. Someone with contacts managed to arrange a tour of the then new Underground depot at Upminster (which I wasn't on, I should add). As part of their tour they had cross the tracks at the throat of the depot, their guide checked that no movements were due and then explained how to cross stepping from rail to rail. When they safely reached the far side, one of the learned visitors mentioned that the technique expounded by the guide was much easier than he had anticipated but questioned how they crossed when the current was on (since the rails they had trodden on included the two raised live rails). The guide replied "What do you mean, what do we when the current is on, the current is on!" Quite an interesting exposé of the fact that the voltage on LT's conductor rails, one nominally positive, the other nominally negative, floated, although apparently at that time more so in the depot than on running lines.

You were clearly unaware that some bright spark in Network Rail thought that, because two-rail electrification has long been the norm for model railways, it ought to be tried on the real railway too.

Those bits of Hither Green Sorting Sidings which received overhead "tramway" wires had been fully wired on the down side by the beginning of 1959 and on the up side by the time the Continental Freight Depot opened in 1960. Only a very limited area on the down side at the Grove Park end received the wiring but it was usual to find several E5000s sitting there with their pans up during the day. Although I lived at Hither Green this was the only time that I ever saw these locos with their pans up - and I never did see one move other than when taking the juice from the third rail. Obviously though there were plenty of occasions when they took power from the overhead and there was at least one long stretch - Mr. Angerstein's Railway at Charlton was wired overhead throughout.

One of the Southern Region MLVs (9004) was repainted into Royal Mail colours in November 1988 and a second followed very briefly in February 1989. Following a robbery in early March 1989 both were quickly repainted into NSE colours so that it wasn't obvious that they were carrying mail.

Staples can be a useful source. I have collected a considerable number in a surprisingly large range of sizes over the years, culled from magazines and advertising booklets before they are added to the "recycling" bin. They can usually be pressed in a vice to remove their inherent bends, they are robust for their size and they solder well. New unused ones can be useful too.